By Fred Abrahams, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Fred Abrahams is a special adviser at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed are his own.
All civilians deserve protection, but some civilians deserve more protection than others. Or so it seems in Libya today.
Two years ago, the U.N. Security Council
authorized
a military operation by NATO with a mandate to protect civilians who
were under attack by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. That operation led to
Gadhafi’s fall.
Today, long after the fighting has stopped, those who are rightly or
wrongly perceived to have supported Gadhafi are under threat. Thousands
of women and children have been displaced from their homes and living in
camps, often harassed. Men have been detained, tortured and killed.
They need protection, but the nations that intervened two years ago have
done virtually nothing on their behalf.
The most pressing case involves the
former residents of the town of Tawergha, which had a pre-war population
of about 42,000. Tawerghans formerly enjoyed Gadhafi’s financial and
political support, and the town became a military staging ground during
the 2011 war. Many fighting age men from Tawergha joined Gadhafi’s
fight.
Some of these men allegedly committed atrocities during the war in the nearby city of Misrata, which suffered from a brutal,
two month siege
in which hundreds of civilians died. Misratans say that Tawerghan
fighters committed killings and rapes in their city and that now it is
time to take revenge.
And revenge is what the anti-Gadhafi militias of Misrata have been
taking, forcing all Tawerghans from their town. Spread across Libya,
Tawerghans have been
hunted down, detained, tortured and killed.
Satellite imagery analyzed by Human Rights Watch corroborates what we
saw on the ground:
the systematic destruction of the town’s residential, commercial and
industrial structures after the fighting had stopped in an apparent
attempt to prevent returns.
The Misratans demand justice for the crimes committed against them,
and this is their due. But justice is not served by punishing an entire
community for crimes committed by some of its members – that is
collective punishment.
But while the U.N. Security Council and its powerful members jumped
to protect Libyan civilians when Gadhafi was the enemy, they have not
taken serious action against the revenge attacks that Tawerghans and
other displaced communities in Libya are suffering from today – about
60,000 people in all, according to the
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
In its
resolution
on Libya this month, the Security Council rightly expressed concern
about reprisals, torture and executions, but failed to mention the
plight of Tawerghans. Even the U.N. mission in Libya, watching
developments up close, has not made the abuses against Tawerghans and
other allegedly “pro-Gadhafi” communities a central theme.
International legal obligations suggest that they should. The
violations against Tawerghans are widespread, systematic and
sufficiently organized to be crimes against humanity. The U.N.’s
commission of inquiry on Libya made this point a year ago.
The Libyan government has a responsibility to protect its people from
such serious crimes, and to hold perpetrators accountable. The Security
Council has a responsibility to help Libya achieve these goals. At a
minimum, the latter should ask Libya to report regularly on the steps it
is taking to protect displaced people and facilitate returns. The
imposition of U.N. sanctions on responsible individuals would also have
immediate effect.
The International Criminal Court can also investigate these crimes
because its mandate in Libya is ongoing. Militia commanders and senior
officials in Misrata could be held criminally responsible for ordering
these crimes, failing to prevent them or failing to punish the
attackers.
The Libyan government says it does not condone these crimes and would
like to see them stop. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has spoken forcefully
about abuses by the many militias in Libya whose actions he does not
control. But that does not absolve him of the responsibility to do more
on behalf of the Libyan citizens who are suffering the wrath of
victorious rebels. And it does not relieve the Security Council of its
responsibility to demand protection for civilians at all times, when
it’s politically convenient and when it’s not.
The failure to ensure protection from some of the worst crimes
undermines the credibility of governments that said they intervened in
Libya to protect civilians. Instead, governments supporting Libya’s
transition should pressure Libya, while providing appropriate
assistance, to ensure that displaced people can safely return to their
homes and share in the benefits that the Libyan popular uprising and
international military intervention were supposed to bring about.
CNN
